In recent years, there has been an increased desire to commercially utilize computer technology in the areas of design and manufacture. With the increased capabilities of today's computers, computer aided design (CAD) and computer aided manufacture (CAM) have been commercially utilized with increasing frequency. However, comprehensive integration of computer aided design systems and computer aided manfuacture systems has been a difficult goal to achieve.
One problem associated with interfacing CAD systems and CAM systems is that different modelling approaches may be utilized by the respective systems. Boundary representation modelling is a more natural system for design work as it has explicit faces to which tolerance information may be associated. In boundary representation modelling, the surface boundaries of a solid are stored explicitly in the compute. Surface information such as hole threading and surface finish may be more easily stored as can the above mentioned tolerance information.
The constructive solid geometry model of an object is formed by combining simple shapes such as blocks and cylinders in building block fashion. These so-called primitives are combined to form a complete representation. The constructive solid geometry model of an object provides a simplified determination of the manner in which to construct the object. Thus, it is beneficial to generate a constructive solid geometry model to interface with a process planner, and to aid developing numerical control instructions for manufacturing the object.
The conversion of the boundary representation of an object into a constructive solid geometry representation thereof enables integrated computer aided design and manufacture. Such a conversion is desirable in that it facilitates improved interfacing of existing computer aided design and computer aided manufacturing systems, and more completely automates the design-manufacture process.